As the actual dates have been published in Lancashire Life Magazine, can I add some realism and pressure to all my friends on the crew by starting a countdown day timer?

252 days to go!

Hmmm. Caution, chaps.

This is all a bit like NASA beginning a countdown while the Bureaucrats have the rocket engines in bits on the floor waiting for a rebuild manual from the Hooplas who also have to agree and sign off the permit to fly for years to come.

Is this 252 days to go really a healthy message to be sending out in such circumstances?

There will be no pressure on this crew. If we accepted compromise, K7 would be currently displayed as a wreck in Manchester and Coniston would have a replica, if anything at all, and we certainly wouldn't have dates that were a no-brainer from the get-go. But it has to be totally safe, properly managed and utterly professional too. no ifs, no buts.

I'm only a plumber from Cannock...

"As to reward, my profession is its own reward;" Sherlock Holmes.

'Sometimes you gotta be an S.O.B if you wanna make a dream reality' Mark Knopfler

252 days to raise all that money.... infact its a whole bunch less time as they need to raise tens of thousands to pay for infrastructure, signage, facilities, staff, pay for traffic management, pay for stewards / rangers, pay for environmental impact assessments, pay the daily rate to the LDNPA to allow the boat on the water........ marquee's, bunting.....

I feel for them, a mammoth task just raising the required funds, let alone corralling folk and training them up to know what to do and providing them with the correct equipment to do it.

"You can screw a man down until he takes to drinking......take me to the fantastic place..."

I feel for them, a mammoth task just raising the required funds, let alone corralling folk and training them up to know what to do and providing them with the correct equipment to do it.

It's obvious to all that they have left themselves a very long way behind the game despite our efforts to school, encourage and cajole over the years, which is why I respectfully suggested at Wednesday's meeting that they position themselves more comfortably to put this together for 2020. After all, with Coniston the epicentre for all of this, they have a big responsibility to make the best possible job of it for the surrounding villages, the park, Cumbria and then the rest of the UK in that order.
The other side of the question, which I don't see being taken as seriously as it ought to be, is that we can't go near Coniston until the deal regarding touring and future maintenance, etc is set in stone because, despite the massive groundswell of public opinion that she must be a living machine, there remains an obstinate handful who would rather she was silenced for good and locked away in the Ruskin Museum for the rest of time and that just isn't going to happen.
Even if we have to disassemble from what we have now every piece that the museum actually owns and deliver to them a box of bits then replace their parts with new-build so we can carry on displaying the spirit of the lake for future generations then that's what we'll do so they have to give some thought to the future as it is now - a very different future to what was envisaged a decade ago.

I'm only a plumber from Cannock...

"As to reward, my profession is its own reward;" Sherlock Holmes.

'Sometimes you gotta be an S.O.B if you wanna make a dream reality' Mark Knopfler

A quick question - seriously, am I missing something here? I obviously receive a lot of feedback from various sources and one thing keeps coming up - a sort of endemic twisty-facedness about us running on Coniston in the school holidays. It was embraced on Bute and so it should be. Both adults and kids were able to get there for a look and you have to wonder now how many of those kids will bring their parents back again and again even when there is no Bluebird to marvel at.
Now consider Consiton. Expensive, generally soggy and not a great deal to do and that applies broadly to the surrounding area yet herein lies a chance to forge an alternative to hopping the EasyJet to the sunshine for 65p and to get half the world along for a look-see. My kids dragged me back to Coniston countless times before I showed them Bute. They've done cruise ships and sunshine and aeroplanes galore but they love that little island as I do and like to go back there for the simple pleasure of feeding the horses out the back of the cottage we rent. There's a whole generation of kids out there who've never considered holidaying in their native land due to cheap air travel and now, here's the chance to grab the whole lot as a captive audience and plonk them slap-bang in the middle of the LDNP and what am I hearing?

Serioulsy - is it me?

I'm only a plumber from Cannock...

"As to reward, my profession is its own reward;" Sherlock Holmes.

'Sometimes you gotta be an S.O.B if you wanna make a dream reality' Mark Knopfler

Ahh Bill. You touch on an age old problem. The difficulty here is the old not in my back yard syndrome. There is an incompatibility with the Lake District and common sense. The Lake District should be there for all, but that means ALL groups having a little give and take or common sense. I find it slightly amusing when people describe anybody who lives in the Lake District as "Locals" because that is a dying breed as people move to the Lake District in retirement with a lot of spare time to complain or lobby, spending power etc and it's bloody difficult to make a sufficiently good enough living to stay there on a tourism or related salary. You touched on noise in an earlier post, and frankly if you apply a little common sense why would it be a problem. Yes it would echo through the valley and be heard for miles but with a little give and take and common sense would the, in reality, very limited time it would actually be a problem really effect anyone. The wildlife etc has adapted to the training flights the jets make and it didn't seem to affect Bute. With Respect, you do seem to realise that Bute is not Coniston and planning an event on an island with limited access is a different ballgame but it seems at the moment like we are going to get to a similar stalemate as we have in our other current negotiations.

100 days have passed since Bluebird K7 went on to the surface of Loch Fad on the Isle of Bute for crew training. Yes, one hundred days!

I am not sure which Isle has "limited access" from the last posting - is that the British Isles post Brexit or the area known as the Lake District at any time or the Isle of Bute. The Isle of Bute has two ferry routes to the mainland and the crew training attracted Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, Germans, Spanish, Italians visitors as well as some English and Scots?

I do try to remain positive despite everything and this week I'm off to deliver a presentation to the Royal Aeronautical Society at R-R Controls and Data HQ in Birmingham. Then, in a couple of weeks, I'm presenting at a two day gas turbine users conference at Old Trafford, no less, whilst my first speaking engagement of next year is at Airbus in Toulouse. Now this is all new and mind-blowing to me and makes a massive change from wibbling on at the local Rotarians or the Jaguar Owners Club (no disrespect) but it gives a glimpse of the rarified air that the BBP now breathes. Then you read the August minutes of the Coniston Parish Council and it says...

Cllr Coward is working on having a Christmas Tree at the Campbell Memorial and
battery powered lights would be required.

How simple could it be? A zillion battery powered lights from eBay or Amazon for under 20 quid. But then the September minutes were published and guess what.

The Christmas Lights Committee currently do not have money to put battery lights
on a Christmas tree at the Campbell Memorial and have suggested a star instead.

And there's a 'Christmas Lights Committee'! Wonder what you need on your CV to be voted onto that...

And, in the next room, here we see being organised, to dazzle the eyes of the world, a premium event / festival around Bluebird K7 once again running on Coniston Water and to commemorate the local hero who is only worth a star and not a £20 tangle of cheapie, Chinese-made fairy lights.

Tomorrow I am going to go to Argos, or Wilkies or wherever to buy a bunch of battery powered lights along with spare batteries so the Christmas tree by the Campbell Memorial can be positively festooned and I'll sponsor it out of my own pocket because, quite clearly, no one else in the village has thought to do this. FFS!

I'm only a plumber from Cannock...

"As to reward, my profession is its own reward;" Sherlock Holmes.

'Sometimes you gotta be an S.O.B if you wanna make a dream reality' Mark Knopfler

I am all for dipping my hand and proffering some funds to aid in that endeavour.

Drop me a PM with a paypal addy, funds will be sent across thursday morning (when wages are paid in)

That also reminds me I need to sort out a bit more Merch' from the BBP shop!

Just cos my username is Thunderer, doesn't necessarily mean I SHOUT !!
"A vehicle is designed to be used, restored or otherwise" A personal response on the question "you have just restored it, why use it?"